After hundreds of years of missionary efforts in the spiritually hard soil of Japan, there are new glimpses that the kingdom of God is advancing among the world’s second largest unreached people group (less than 0.5% evangelical Christian). Even as the evangelical church in Japan is in decline (due in part to the aging of pastors and loss of missionaries), a fresh wind of the Spirit is giving rise to several Indigenous church planting movements.
Impetus
As Dr. John Mehn writes in Multiplying Church in Japanese Soil, several effective models of reproducing churches have been identified in Japan. Examples among these include: Oyumino Chapel (Chiba: Dan Iverson, MTW); Grace City Church (Tokyo: Makoto Fukuda, City to City); and the Mustard Seed Network (several cities in Japan: Jay Greer, MSN). There is an unique opportunity to capture and tell their stories to a wider audience, bringing an inspirational and strategic boost to gospel expansion throughout Japan and the rest of the Asia Pacific region.
In the Fall of 2019, Hunt Valley Church (PCA) began preparing to send a short-term missions team to Japan in conjunction with an MTW Vision Trip scheduled for May 2020. Among those planning to go were several filmmakers of Accent Interactive, a creative agency based in Baltimore, MD. They were looking to capture stories and craft a documentary about the emerging gospel ecosystem that birthed several indigenous church-planting efforts and associated gospel-oriented ministries.
With the onset of Covid-19 in 2020, strategic and tactical plans changed, but the vision to capture and tell the story of what God is doing in Japan remained. Utilizing first Zoom, and then a team of filmmakers in both the USA and Japan, interviews were conducted, translated and compiled. The result is the video documentary series called Rising Tide. It will soon be publicly released with six of the eight videos envisioned completed thus far.
Contents
Episode One – Spiritual Formation
Episode Two – Preparing to Plant
Episode Three – First Fruits
Episode Four – Gospel Transformation
Episode Five – Servant Leadership
Episode Six – Vision for Church Multiplication (future episode)
Episode Seven – Network Effect
Episode Eight– Beyond the Pandemic (in post production)
Dedication
With gratitude to God for the leadership of Jay Kyle, David Lu, Pastor Kajikawa, Pastor Hirohashi Sr. and other faithful servants of Christ whose lives proved to be part of the Rising Tide of God’s Kingdom in Japan.
“The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise.” Prov. 11:30
The Coppersmiths and Japan 